Concerns loom as Google begins testing health records system

Google plans to begin testing its long-anticipated health records project this week by partnering with an Ohio hospital group over the next couple of months. The pilot will involve transferring the health information of between 1,500 and 10,000 patients who have records at the Cleveland Clinic, which already has over 100,000 records stored in its own digital database. Patients will then be able to have access to their own records online, wherever they go (with an Internet connection), which Google thinks will help reduce conflicts in diagnoses and prescriptions between doctors.

The pilot project is expected to last six to eight weeks, Google health VP Marissa Mayer toldThe New York Times, with a public launch expected sometime later this year. Patients will be able to approve the secure transfer of any number of records—from lab results to known allergies to other medical conditions—to Google's system, allowing them to take the records to another doctor or have them available while traveling. One doctor pointed out to the Times that many Cleveland Clinic patients are retirees that travel for nearly half the year, so the clinic's own digitized system isn't very helpful during that time. If the records are accessible through Google's system, patients won't have to worry as much about keeping accurate records on hand in the case of an emergency.

Google isn't the first company to dip its toes into the online health records pool. Microsoft managed to beat Google to the punch by launching a beta of its own health records system, HealthVault, last October. The system allows users to manage records for not only themselves, but also spouses, children, relatives, guardians, patients, and even pets. Information can be transferred directly from a healthcare provider like Google is doing with Cleveland Clinic, but it can also be uploaded directly from a PC, entered by hand, or transferred from a device (such as a glucose monitor).

Google did not give any indication as to whether its health records database would be tied into the same Google login required to access Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and other Google services. Hopefully it will not (or at least require an additional level of security), as privacy and security have become major sticking points for companies attempting to launch online health record systems. Microsoft's system requires both a Windows Live ID and a HealthVault account that are tied together and require complex passwords, and the company has a strict privacy policy about who can have access. That is, no one has access to your health records unless you specifically grant them permission, and Microsoft makes an effort to ensure that you know exactly what you're doing when you do so.

There is another issue that has skeptics doubtful that such an initiative could ever take off. The level of freedom allowed in Microsoft's HealthVault means that patients can enter (or omit) anything they want, meaning that any healthcare provider that bases diagnoses on what they find on HealthVault is taking a serious risk—the data available there is no more reliable than a patient survey at the doctor's office. We observed in October that a system that restricts write access to doctors, with patients being granted read-only access and the ability to request changes if they find inaccuracies, would be much more reliable.

There are not enough details about Google's system to know whether it will be implemented like HealthVault, though. From the description of what's happening with Cleveland Clinic, it sounds as if records will only be transferred by healthcare providers and not by patients themselves—if that's the case, then doctors can have a little more confidence in the information there. But with several months to go before Google's public launch, anything can change.